In this chapter the choreography of the minuet as it was performed in late eighteenth-century Vienna is reconstructed. Unlike previous iterations of the dance, the minuet in this context was performed as a group dance, undertaken by many couples dancing simultaneously, and the minuet’s development as a group dance is considered in relation to its previous history. The choreography is reconstructed from German-language dance treatises written around the end of the eighteenth century. The minuet step is explained, and readers are taught how to perform it. The main figures of the minuet are given – the Z-figure, the révérences, the giving of hands – and comparative schemes for these figures from the different treatises are set alongside each other. The overall structure of the dance is established, and practical logistics of performing the dance alongside other dancers in a crowded space are considered. The minuet’s association with the enactment of ‘nobility’ is interrogated.

This chapter explores the dance culture of Vienna in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It describes the changing legislation that opened up the city’s dance halls to a paying public, and the subsequent establishment of new dance venues across the city and its suburbs. It considers the social make-up of attendees at these venues, and ways in which social class was both entrenched and destabilised in this setting, particularly through practices such as masking. Descriptions of the minuet, the German dance and the contredanse – the three main dances performed at the public balls during this period – are given. The chapter ends with a detailed account of a public ball hosted by the Gesellschaft bildender Künstler at the Hofburg Redoutensaal on 25 November 1792, for which Haydn composed the music. The aim of focusing on this one event is to paint as vivid as possible a picture of the scene, such that readers can readily put themselves ‘in the shoes’ of minuet dancers in Vienna at the end of the century.

In November 1792, Beethoven arrived in Vienna to study with Haydn and ultimately to make his career. Such was the importance of dancing as a social skill that Beethoven included finding a dancing teacher on his ‘to-do’ list and upon arrival in Vienna copied out the details of a dancing teacher from the Wiener Zeitung. In the same month, Haydn returned to Vienna from his first trip to England, and his first task was to compose minuets and German dances for a ball in the city’s Redoutensaal at the end of the month. November 1792 thus sets the scene for an investigation into the dance culture of Vienna at the end of the eighteenth century, and its implications for minuet composition, with a focus on minuets by Haydn. Following a description of Beethoven’s arrival and Haydn’s return, the Introduction considers existing musicological attempts to consider the minuet, and provides a summary outline of the book that follows.

This chapter explores the repertoire of minuets composed around the end of the eighteenth century specifically for dancing, considering them particularly in relation to the needs (perceived and real) of the dance. The research is based on an in-depth study of 319 minuets (and trios) composed for the annual balls of the Gesellschaft bildender Künstler at the Hofburg Redoutensaal. Certain defining features of the repertoire are identified, such as the two-bar grouping necessary for the dancers’ enactment of the minuet step. Larger-scale features are explored, such as the perceived need by music theorists (and possibly some composers) for eight-bar phrases to accommodate the choreography – even though the choreography does not actually dictate this – and the extent to which this might be considered a key structural feature of the minuet genre. The minuet choreography (established in Chapter 2) is set against the structure of a typical minuet composition, revealing that, while on the small scale there is considerable coherence between step and two-bar groupings, on the larger scale there is little correspondence between dance figure and musical phrase lengths. Compositional creativity, noble musical expression and musical anomalies are considered.

Outlines the aims and rationale of this guide to The Rite of Spring, sketching the book’s structure across four parts: The Paris Premiere; Contexts; Performance and Interpretation; and Scholarship. Situates the volume within a scholarly context, exploring how it relates to the enormous quantity of published literature on The Rite of Spring – a literature that can be difficult to navigate, especially for newcomers to the work. Also proposes a new, historically sensitive way of approaching the original 1913 production, combining historical and musical perspectives with a focus on the ballet’s intense corporeal impact as noted by some of the first critics inside the theatre.

Describes how Russian dancer-turned-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky broke free from ballet conventions in his pre-war productions for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes: L’Après-midi d’un faune (1912), Jeux (1913) and, most famously, The Rite of Spring (1913). Focuses on his characteristically reductive movement vocabulary, the arrangement of dancers on stage and his retreat from the traditions of illusionistic theatre as recognized and understood at the end of the long nineteenth century. Considers various source materials, including press reports, photographs, choreographic notation (where available) and oral testimony. Also explores possible influencing factors within the pre-war theatrical scene (modernist puppet theatre, two-dimensionality, the so-called ‘cinema of attractions’), as well as influences Nijinsky may have had on the choreographers who followed him.

This chapter surveys the fields of musicology and dance studies, examining some of the most influential historically themed scholarship that has emerged within the two disciplines – and echoed across their own disciplinary histories – since the early twentieth century. Paying particular attention to the work of towering musicologist Richard Taruskin and dance expert Lynn Garafola, the chapter provides a useful account of the ballet’s scholarly legacy and the principal themes that have arisen across what has been a stupendous (and seemingly endless) volume of literature. Of these themes, race, gender and national identity prove particularly enduring, as generations of scholars seek to situate the ballet within coterminous histories of rupture and continuity.